


You have a tell.

by DitescoMori



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3747349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DitescoMori/pseuds/DitescoMori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You bite your nails,” He replies as he fishes his bounty, explaining his answer just so the other man doesn’t believe himself all that lost. It is a cheap bargain, but all the same in the caliber of the Sergeant. He is not one to reap on the hopeless or those who have been stripped of everything already. Despite this being his victory, the Commandos know better. The money will be spent in the next round of drinks the Sergeant buys for them to celebrate their next conquered territory, in the next shoddy town they make their stop in. “That is when I know you are bluffing.” He collects the very last coin and pockets it away, “Everyone has a tell. You bite your nails, Falsworth touches his moustache, and don’t even get me started on Dum Dum--You are my men, after all. It is my job to know when you are lying to me.”</p><p>“And what is my tell, Sergeant?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	You have a tell.

**Author's Note:**

> For [Peggy](http://www.roleplayer.me/view_profile.php?member_id=767629) and [Steve.](http://www.roleplayer.me/view_profile.php?member_id=289724)

The silver cross scintillates and gleams under a palliative of darkness, underneath the pelt of sylvan wool that covers his chest, full of woven dirt and seams that come undone like shoddy coils of wood. You will find it all there: cheeky, cocky, as the beginning and the end, as parameters of adjectives that cover all of the above, whilst making justice to the debonair cerulean gleam of his eyes (in that threshold between youth and gentleman with a flair for the chivalry). Catholic by maternal coercion, soldier by choice, there is not much to be left to speculate under the boyish charm and smug grin of James Buchanan Barnes as he looks over the table. It is a mess of foreign bills, coins, exhumed cigarettes and residues of alcohol, but even the most leman eye can separate the bounties from the colloquial: most of the spoils of the night have been garnered by him. Poker nights with the Commandos have become a true communion, a ritual not any different than singing war songs or splitting the last of their rations among them.

He sits with the chair backwards as his chest presses against the furniture’s back rest, poised with a certain regal that does not quite garnish the contours and formality of his normal, khaki rigor. But it catches a flair, nonetheless: the green wool, the one-size too big cargo pants and the shoelaces of his boots coming undone, the hair in utter upheaval and the very warmth of cerulean eyes that cling to their last remnants of humanity. The heels of his feet, for the past hour, have been drumming to Glenn Miller’s A String of Pearls. 

“Tsk, tsk.” The Sergeant admonishes, albeit with an obvious veil of mischief, a sound intoned by camaraderie, and not authority by any means, “You have a tell.” The drawl of his vowels speaks of Ferris Wheels, caramelized nuts and cotton sugar where he, his sister, and his best friend spent afternoons of summer in the borough of Brooklyn. The scar crossing his eyebrow speaks of the wound of that fight he almost did not finish and Steve, like always, initiated. The broken gesture of his smile is that helix of broken dreams and mitigated hopes that maybe, just maybe, there is hope for them still, in the midst of the war. He is a canvas open for interpretation for the keen observer, for whomever chooses to scrutiny beyond the contours of his smile and the weary eyes. For whomever chooses to take a gander and separate the man from the soldier.

Dark brown eyes, in their rush not to show their obvious attentiveness and alertness, do everything but just that as they level up to meet the Sergeant’s. “You are lying,” Jim Morita interjects, the notion of being so obvious seeming like some sort of offense.

Tossing a deck of cards, Bucky flourishes his hand: three kings and a pair of Aces. It is a calculated move, the way his hand twists and tosses the cards over the mess of ashes and pounds scattered on the table. From his vantage point, Morita sees the same victorious flair from when the young Sergeant lands a bullet on one of their nameless crimson-and-black marks in the battlefield. Sometimes, he wonders, if this is how he behaved all along, if his aim was acquired in the midst of town fairs, or in the streets during the summer when the streets would swell with kids playing hopscotch; or is just one of the consequences of how the war has desensitized them.

“You bite your nails,” He replies as he fishes his bounty, explaining his answer just so the other man doesn’t believe himself all that lost. It is a cheap bargain, but all the same in the caliber of the Sergeant. He is not one to reap on the hopeless or those who have been stripped of everything already. Despite this being his victory, the Commandos know better. The money will be spent in the next round of drinks the Sergeant buys for them to celebrate their next conquered territory, in the next shoddy town they make their stop in. “That is when I know you are bluffing.” He collects the very last coin and pockets it away, “Everyone has a tell. You bite your nails, Falsworth touches his moustache, and don’t even get me started on Dum Dum--You are my men, after all. It is my job to know when you are lying to me.”

“And what is my tell, Sergeant?”

Hearing a woman’s voice in a battlefield, is in itself, a strange feat. Most belong to the dulcet of the nurses that take care of the sick men in the infirmary, but it is strange to hear them in the midst of gunpowder and sweat. Even with this uncanniness, her lilting voice rings truest, and within seconds, Morita and Bucky are on their feet, welcoming Agent Carter, who regards the gentlemen with an ounce of mingled curiosity and sympathy.

“Gentlemen,” she nods her head slowly, the corners of her lips evening out into a non-revealing rictus, and in just the blink of an eye, the two men known they are back under the sigil of the British official, and not the woman underneath her skin. “May I have a word with the Sergeant?”

Taking hint of this being his cue, Morita collects his belongings and leaves the room. Bucky cleans the table to the best of his ability and extends a chair for her, using the sleeves of his green sweater to clean off whatever he can from it. He also cleans one of the vases with a napkin, pouring an unsolicited drink for the new guest while replenishing his own.

“That depends,” Bucky braves, “Do you have five minutes to spare for me and a game of cards?” It is a gamble to address her with such familiarity, but everything is a gamble these days. Stepping out of the tent into the fringe of the battlefield is a coin toss between life and death. There has always been a haughtiness to him, but the war has extrapolated the feature and sharpened it as a distinguishing trait of his character. War, they say, brings the best and worst out of people. And so he ambles on the finite and small line between these two. Tonight, he cares little about formalism and rigor as he offers her a friendly hand, a friendly ear. Steve has already told him of the ordeal they both went through in order to rescue the Commandos from Italy. He has also seen the way they both look at each other.

She doesn’t answer, but instead collects the cards into a deck and shuffles them. He watches her silently, watches how her ten nails polished with crimson move through the cards with a dexterity he is not expecting. It intrigues him, but saves his commentaries. He has seen enough of her in action to know that Peggy Carter breaks the paragon of conventionalism. It must have not been easy for her, he knows. To situate herself so high up in the ranks of men. To forge a name for herself. To have men look up at her. She finishes shuffling the deck and deals him five cards, then gives serves herself the same amount. The eyes that raise to meet him over the flourished quintet hold a new light: it is almost mischief. Bucky takes this as a challenge.

“I am listening,” her voice is quiet and it holds an edge of humor. He observes, quietly, with a small smile. She places two cards down and takes the same amount from the deck, revealing nothing.

Bucky, instead, bids his time. He reaches over to a small silver case next to him, extracting a cigarette he places on his lips. Shortly after, he ignites a match and light the smoke, taking a deep intake of air before proceeding, “Who taught you how to play?”

“A prisoner taught me,” her answers sounds curtly, and Bucky recognizes the same tone in which she usually addresses the men in the room. Perhaps she knows he is looking for something to give herself away. “A German prisoner. Curious at that. He refused to speak to anyone but me, and he always requested that we played a game before sitting down to talk.”

“Ah,” Bucky piques, setting down three cards and picking up the same amount from the deck. He removes the cigarette from his lips, gives the butt a gentle tap with his thumb for ashes to come down, and hinges it back in his mouth. “Does this mean I should be wary, then?”

“That depends, Sergeant. I must say. So far, I am slightly disappointed to see that Sergeant’s Barnes infamous tactics in poker are to bore them to death.” She hints with a small smile, angling her head just enough to side in order to let him know he means no harm.

The jab is welcomed with sonorous laughter, along with a shake of his head. Eventually, he drops his cards, revealing a triad of Jokers. Peggy lowers down her cards as well, revealing two pairs of nines and two pairs of Queens. She is sympathetic and chooses not to brag her victory this time. A noble retreat, as Bucky grabs the cards once more and starts shuffling them.

“The reason why I came to you…” She starts slowly, placing both of her hands on her skirt. “Is because--”

She stops mid-sentence. Not at a loss for words, but because of the look his face has. She is currently being observed by a couple of pastel-blue eyes that reveal, for the first time since she managed to take a look at James Buchanan Barnes after being rescued from the Hydra prison, an indomitable kindness and along with a quiet fear. She can easily read in the crinkles of his eyes an exhaustion that rest and good meals alone cannot fix. Inevitably, a chill runs down her spine. She has seen the eyes of the weary, of men ambling in the threshold of dead, clinging fervently to the last seconds of life. But there is an unavoidable abandon in his eyes, one she currently feels captive of. It is impossible to presume he is the same man that left the shores of Brooklyn, let alone the same man that entered and exited the captivity of that Hydra prison. There is a silent struggle going on, one easily misguided by his flamboyant smile or the way he vainly brags about being the best poker player in the squadron. In the end, she forgets her sentence, and instead chooses to pursue her lips together in a small, quiet smile.

“I haven’t been able to thank you. To, you know, properly thank you. Steve told me what you did for all of us.”

“He did all the heavy work, really, it is he who--“

“No, no,” he speaks a little too sudden and abrupt, and hearing his own feedback, he chooses to quiet down the haste and timbre of his voice. “I mean it. There is not a lot of people who would have risked their lives for us.”

“You are his best friend,” Peggy quietly reminds him, taking the five cards he is offering her, spreading them out. “I was just trying to help him.”

“He is more than that,” Bucky counters with a smile. “He is my brother. I came to this war thinking I could protect him. My family, all of them back home. I never expected he would be the one saving me.”

So, that is where the struggle was coming from. The demureness of his eyes. The gentle sway of blue: the ripples and waves of the ocean. Guilt. Remorse. Not because of the lives he has claimed. But the lives he has not been able to protect, according to his stringent paragon.

“Sergeant…”

“James.”

“He is thankful for that. You have done more than enough to protect him,” Her answer comes without speaking out his name, unsure of how it feels to her to roll it in her tongue. “You have given him every reason to keep on fighting.”

By now, the cigarette in his lips has almost been consumed. A small piece lingers hinged on his lips, but he discards it, regardless, putting the light out in the makeshift ashtray. “Is that what that punk has been tellin’ you?”

She smiles in earnest this time, placing three cards down, picking the same amount from the deck, “Among other things, yes.”

He nods, placing just one card down and picking one up, “Then that is your tell, Miss Carter.” He places his cards down, laying them out on the table for her to look, two pairs of Queens and Kings, “That is the smile Steve Rogers brings out in all of us. The smile we cannot hold back, the smile we cannot contain. The smile when you know you are in deep, and that there is nothing you can absolutely do to change it.”


End file.
